Gabon Invests In Satellites To Save Rainforest

Description

Gabon is home to some of Africa's most bio-diverse rainforests. Around 80 percent of the country is forested with an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 species of plants. It is one of the few places on Earth where primary tropical rainforest extends all the way to the beach. To protect that, the country recently partnered with Brazil and France to provide satellite imaging to monitor the rainforests. The World Resources Instititute estimates that last year, the world lost some 18 million hectares of tree cover - more than half of it in the tropics! In Gabon and neighbouring countries in the Congo basin, forest destruction is blamed on palm oil production and mineral extraction.